Sunflower Highlights

Post Date: Mar 30 2020

Options for unharvested sugarbeet acres this spring

Are you facing a dilemma this spring of whether to seed or not to seed unharvested sugarbeet acres? A recent article in The Farmer magazine shares advice from Extension specialists on what to do with your unharvested sugarbeet fields. According to the article, sunflowers can be seeded later in the season without much downside risk. There is some risk that clopyralid that is released by the decomposing sugarbeets will injure sunflowers. This risk will be greatest if we have a cool and dry spring that limits the biological degradation of the clopyralid. Click here to learn more.

Anthem® herbicide label expanded to sunflower

Anthem® Flex herbicide has been labeled for preplant and preemergence applications in sunflower. The active ingredients in Anthem® Flex herbicide are pyroxasulfone and carfentrazone-ethyl. This herbicide provides strong residual control of grasses and small-seeded broadleaf weeds with burndown activity on emerged broadleaf weeds. Anthem® Flex herbicide is effective on Italian ryegrass, rattail fescue, yellow and green foxtail, barnyardgrass, pigweed, waterhemp, and Palmer amaranth. It also provides suppression of kochia.

Scott Tranby joins NSA Board of Directors

Scott Tranby of Cooperstown, ND is the newest member of the NSA Board of Directors and the North Dakota Oilseed Council. Tranby was elected in District 2, which includes the North Dakota counties of Barnes, Cass, Griggs, Steele and Traill. Tranby replaces board member Ben Vig.

Deadline for NSA scholarship extended

The deadline to apply for the National Sunflower Association’s Curtis Stern Memorial Scholarship has been extended to May 1. Preference will be given to students who are in their last two years of undergraduate studies or in graduate level studies and have maintained at least a cumulative 3.0 GPA on a 4.0=A scale. Application deadline is May 1, 2020. A total of $5,000 is available for the scholarship this year. Applications can be submitted online. Click here to learn more. Contact Tina Mittelsteadt at tinam@sunflowernsa.com with any questions.

Planter considerations for producers

As sunflower planting approaches for the major production region, it is important to take a close look at planter condition and settings. Achieving the perfect plant stand is one of the most critical challenges for growers each year. The NSA website offers a series of tutorial videos featuring John Smith, Agricultural Engineer with the University of Nebraska at Scottsbluff. Smith conducted seed placement tests on oil sunflower and large seeded confections using a variety of metering and planter types. Click here to view his observations and recommendations for calibration and adjustments to achieve excellent plant spacing.

Upcoming events

June 23-25, 2020
NSA Summer Seminar, Spearfish, SD

Markets

This week nearby prices softened as producers took advantage of market high prices at the crush plants and were aggressive sellers. Tomorrow USDA will release its March 1 stocks and 2020 planted acres by crop reports. The Prospective Plantings report will provide the initial indication of potential acreage levels for spring crops and will set the tone for production potential as we move into planting season. Most private firms are forecasting as much as a ten million acre increase in corn plantings with spring wheat acres increasing slightly from last year. Private estimates have 2020 soybean acres at around 85 million acres which would represent a five million acre increase in soybean plantings. If producers do match this estimate it would be the third largest soybean planted acreage on record.Industry members are expecting oil sunflower acres to show a moderate increase from 2019. Very attractive new crop confection sunflower prices this year have the industry expecting acres to rebound to more historic levels after last year’s disappointing production. Overall, oil sunflower prices have remained steady throughout this winter despite the weakness in other commodities. The 2019 sunflower crop was smaller than expected and good demand has supported prices for most of this marketing year. New crop oil sunflower prices continue to be higher than a year ago at this same time with oil crushers still offering Act of God and cash contracts.

Weekly Prices Recorded on Monday, March 30, 2020 ($/CWT)

	Deliver	Last Year	Last Week	This Week	Change	2020 NEW Crop
Chicago Oil	Nearby	28.57	26.14	26.87	+.73	28.08
West Fargo, ND	NuSun	17.55	20.80	20.25	-.55	17.90
West Fargo, ND	High Oleic	17.65	21.00	20.65	-.35	18.00
Enderlin, ND	NuSun	17.45	20.80	20.30	-.50	17.75
Enderlin, ND	High Oleic	17.65	21.00	20.50	-.50	18.15
Goodland, KS	NuSun	16.65	18.75	18.75	NC	18.10
Goodland, KS	High Oleic	17.75	19.50	19.50	NC	19.25

Prices recorded here are believed to be reliable at the time of posting. All prices are subject to change. Contact these facilities for complete market details.

U.S. CRUDE OIL VALUES recorded on Monday, March 30, 2020
(dollars per 100 lb. internal U.S. location)

	Last Year	Last Week	This Week	Change
Soybean Oil	27.82	25.51	26.27	+.73
Cotton Oil (psby)	37.57	35.14	35.87	+.73
Corn Oil	30.00	39.00	39.00	NC